Sea ice in the Norwegian Arctic island of Svalbard on April 6./Lisi Niesner/Reuters
2023.06.07 Wed posted at 12:31 JST
（ＣＮＮ） The disappearance of sea ice from the Arctic in summer could come about a decade earlier than previously predicted. Scientists have issued such warnings. It’s another clear sign that the climate crisis is unfolding faster than expected as the world continues to emit greenhouse gases.
The research was published today in Nature Communications. Arctic sea ice could disappear completely during September as early as the 2030s, it said. Even if the world cuts greenhouse gases significantly now, Arctic sea ice could disappear during the summer by the 1950s, scientists report.
The study analyzed changes in sea ice from 1979 to 2019. Different satellite data and climate models were compared.
They found that most of the decline in sea ice is due to human-induced warming. Previous climate models also underestimated the melting trend of Arctic sea ice.
In an interview with CNN, Professor Min Seung-ki of Pohang University of Technology in South Korea, who was the lead author of the research paper, expressed his surprise at the analysis results. He said he didn’t expect the sea ice to disappear from the Arctic in the summer, regardless of efforts to cut emissions.
Arctic sea ice forms during the winter and melts in the summer. Sea ice typically reaches its lowest level in September, after which it repeats formation and melting.
Sea ice in the Norwegian Svalbard Islands = April 5
If the sea ice disappeared completely in the summer, the rate of cold-season sea ice formation would be much slower, Ming said. The warmer the climate, the more likely it is that the Arctic will remain ice-free for longer.
If fossil fuels continue to be used and greenhouse gas emissions levels continue to rise, the period when sea ice disappears from the Arctic extends to August through October. Mr. Min warns that such a situation will come before the 1980s.
The 2021 report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the Arctic would be virtually ice-free by the middle of this century under moderate and high greenhouse gas emission scenarios. ” was analyzed.
A new study found that that realization could come a decade earlier, regardless of the emissions scenario, Ming said.
Loss of sea ice from the Arctic in summer will have severe ripple effects around the world. The white ice serves to reflect the sun’s energy away from Earth, but when it melts away, the darker oceans absorb more heat, accelerating warming. It’s a process called Arctic warming amplification.
Warming in the Arctic could bring extremes of heatwaves, wildfires and floods to mid- and high-latitude regions of the northern hemisphere, Ming said. Such weather events are likely to occur sooner than expected, given the earlier expected loss of sea ice.
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2023-06-07 03:31:00
